The Apple Watch isn’t completely waterproof, so it makes sense that you won’t find a swimming option in the Workouts app. But that hasn’t stopped one development team from building their own way to track aquatic exercises on the wearable.
Active in Time has ported its own Pebble swimming app over to Apple’s smartwatch, and it tested its functionality (and the Apple Watch’s water resistance) with four lengths in an Olympic swimming pool. You can see the results in the video below.
The app tracks lengths, total distance, time, and heart rate all on one screen. The small problem with the Apple Watch port, however, is that because the smartwatch turns off to save energy, it doesn’t track these numbers on the fly. You have to wake it up after you’re done to pull together and examine all of the data. But then again, it’s not like you’re going to be checking your heart rate in the middle of your swim, so that may be a non-issue.
“If you’re gonna do this yourself, make sure that you know that it probably voids your warranty,” Active in Time director Daniel Morgan explains before the demonstration.
And he’s right, as Apple’s standard agreement does not apply to “damage caused by operating the Apple Product outside Apple’s published guidelines.” Taking an Apple Watch into a pool probably qualifies, as the company says in its fine print on its online storefront that “Apple Watch is splash and water resistant but not waterproof. You can, for example, wear and use Apple Watch during exercise, in the rain, and while washing your hands, but submerging Apple Watch is not recommended.”
Because of that second issue, Apple isn’t likely to approve this swimming app anytime soon, successful demonstration aside. The App Store Review Guidelines specifically forbid “Apps that encourage users to use an Apple Device in a way that may cause damage to the device,” so don’t expect to download this one anytime soon.
Still, with rumblings of the Apple Watch 2 already going around, we could hope that the next iteration of the hardware will be completely waterproof and can therefore support an even wider variety of fitness tracking.
If you want all of the details on Active in Time’s cool swimming app, go check out the blog post about its development.
Evan Killham is a freelance writer who lives in Nebraska and isn’t interested in football, so he has plenty of time to play and think about video games. He has written for Bitmob and GamesBeat and sometimes, he even goes outside. But not too often because he’s heard there are bees out there. Occasionally, companies send free units for review. Evan subscribes to Cult of Mac’s Reviews Policy and also does not keep the items he receives for possible coverage.
5 responses to “Apple Watch swim app works — but it will void your warranty”
If the Apple Watch ever gets truly waterproof, then I’ll consider it. Until then, there are a couple of devices, like Misfit’s Shine, that are actually waterproof. While it doesn’t track laps, it does let you set your activity to ‘swimming’. My Shine is pushing two years old now and still working great!
There’s scores of videos of the Apple Watch being submerged and worn while swimming and it still works flawlessly. I dared to do such a thing and took my daughters to an indoor wave pool where I waded around in the water for nearly 2-hours and my Apple Watch hasn’t shown a single sign of issues.
Like the videos I noticed that it doesn’t work while in the water but once you’re out of the water and there’s no droplets on the screen it works perfectly.
I don’t think I’d go swimming for hours on end every day for a week but it’s certainly good enough for a day at the beach or at the pool.
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And this is how apple keeps people coming back. They leave out features to introduce into the next version to force people to upgrade. Marketing genius or just plain evil.
Apple Watch’s rating is IPX7. The actual wording of IPX7 is
“IPX-7 Waterproof Standard
Puddle, stream, beer cooler and splash rated – Protected against water immersion – Immersion for 30 minutes at a depth of 1 meter.”
So no diving, or deep swimming, but swimming on the surface of water is perfectly within its rating and there should be no warranty issue with that. 1 meter of water is 2.75 psi of hydrostatic over pressure. Maybe slapping the watch against the surface could be a problem, but almost every device is conservatively rated, and I bet the Apple Watch is no different. I wear the watch in the shower 2 or 3 times a week, wash the watch with running water on my wrist a few times a week, and even give my son a bath with it on. It’s basically waterproof.